Better Neighbor Connections

[metarvo]

Better Neighbor Connections Part 1

Have you ever wanted to connect a Street to a neighboring city?  In times past, I always upgraded the Street to a Road for the connection.  It worked, but it looked strange IMHO.  However, I have developed a workaround for this limitation.

Before you begin, you will need:

NAM 31 (this tutorial has been updated accordingly)

Okay, we'll start with the ortho Streets.

Orthogonal Street Connections


1.01

Build a Road neighbor connection in the exact location that you want the Street connection to be.


1.02

Bulldoze any extra Road segments until only the Road segment with the yellow connection arrow remains.
WARNING: Do NOT bulldoze the tile with the yellow connection arrow at any time, or you will have to start over at Step #1.


1.03

Find Undergound Rail in the Rail menu, and press Tab until this piece appears.  It should be the second piece in the Tab ring.  Place it on top of the connection.
This step has been brought up to date with the release of the May 2010 NAM.  Now, only one piece must be placed for this step.  Find the "Curved Rail under Straight Road" piece in the Underground Rail and place the section with the diagonal rail over the road neighbor connection.


Now, place the straight Underground Rail segment (should be first in the Tab ring) next to the curve so it visually connects.
This step is no longer necessary if you have the May 2010 NAM installed.


1.04

Bulldoze the straight curved Underground Rail segment, making sure to bulldoze the section that is not touching the border.  You should be left with a neighbor connection arrow on an empty tile.


1.05
Find SAM in the Road menu, and select a SAM starter piece.  Even if you are trying to make a neighbor connection with a regular Maxis street, the SAM must be used to generate an ortho Street stub.
The SAM is no longer used to create a NC, unless the Street that is crossing the border is a SAM Street.  Even then, it is not a part of the connection creation process.


With NAM 31, you will have to use the Rail Viaduct over Street puzzle piece instead.  Place it over the NC arrow (or the invisible point of NC if you're using a mod that removes NC arrows).


1.06

Place the Underground Rail under Straight Road piece next to the viaduct so that the Rails line up.


1.07

Bulldoze the tile that is right next to the connection.  You should be left with a Street connection.  The query will not identify this connection, but it works nonetheless.

Remember to go to the neighboring tile and repeat Steps 2-7, unless you have connected to the edge of the region.  Connect it to your existing network as you wish.  You can even connect SAM streets to the connection tiles.  Here are two pics to show that this works.


This is the residential city.  Notice that cars take the connection...


...to the industrial city.  It works, at least according to the tests that I've run.

Diagonal Street Connections


1.08
Complete Steps 1.01-1.04 above.


1.09

Select the Diagonal Street Helper Pieces in the Road menu, and hover a piece so it overhangs the connection arrow in the desired direction.  Click to place.


1.10

Select the Diagonal Street Helper Pieces in the Road menu, and hover a piece so it overhangs the connection arrow in the desired direction.  Click to place.

Again, here's two pictures to illustrate the finished product.

[Luke09]

Very good man,now my suburbs look a little more realistic...

[beutelschlurf]

moin metarvo,

good work 
did'nt know that

b_schlurf

[j-dub]

Well done Metarvo. That deserves double the Karma points. 

[nerdly_dood]

Street neighbor connections were one of the game's minor drawbacks that are just amazingly annoying, and you've helped us get over this major barrier. Great job!

[aaaling]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


EDIT by Andreas: Please do not quote entire postings for just one comment, even if it was a compliment.

[metarvo]

Better Neighbor Connections Part 2

Road neighbor connections are nothing new, particularly orthogonal ones.  Diagonal Road connections are also possible, but they can result in road alignment issues on the other side of the connection.  At least, until now.

Diagonal Road Connections

You will need:

NAM
RHW


2.01

The first step in building a diagonal Road connection is the construction of a diagonal Road to the city's edge.  Drag the Road diagonally all the way to the neighbor with which you want to connect.  If you do it right, you should get the usual neighbor connection prompt.  Click "Accept."




Save and exit the first city that you built the connection in and go to the neighbor city.  That was the easy part.  With the completion of the first city's connection, work must be done in the neighbor city to complete the connection on that side.  Notice that the connection is present in the neighbor city, but it's orthogonal.  This won't do for the purposes of a diagonal connection, so it must be corrected.


2.02

Bulldoze the excess tiles so only one tile of Road remains.

WARNING!: Like with the last tutorial, I must stress that the connection itself should NOT be bulldozed.  If you accidentally bulldoze it at any time during the construction process, exit the neighbor city without saving, re-enter it, and start from 2.02.  Personally, I would recommend saving after the completion of each of the following steps, to minimize lost work if something goes wrong.

2.03

Find Undergound Rail in the Rail menu, and press Tab until this piece appears.  It should be the second piece in the Tab ring.  Place it on top of the connection.


2.04

Now, place the straight Underground Rail segment (should be first in the Tab ring) next to the curve so it visually connects.


2.05

Bulldoze the straight Underground Rail segment.  You should be left with a neighbor connection arrow on an empty tile.


2.06

Now, go to the RHW menu and select the RHW-4 Starter Piece.  Place the piece one tile away from the connection.



When one edge tile and the center tile of the 3-tile RHW section is bulldozed, a diagonal Road stub will remain.  Note that the needed rotation of the RHW-4 Starter Piece varies depending on the direction of the road leaving the neighbor city and the specific neighbor that the road is connecting from.  The following picture displays the results of the starter piece's four rotations, with the neighbor city (not the first city) as the starting point:



2.07

Bulldoze the edge tile farthest from the connection, and then bulldoze the center tile.  If the started piece was rotated and placed according to 2.06, the resulting diagonal Road stub should appear over the connection.


2.08

Connect the road network of the neighbor city to the connection as desired.  The connection is now complete.

Here are two proof pictures:


This is the neighbor city, which only has Residential zones.


This is the first city, which only has Industrial zones.  As you can see, workers enter the Industrial city from the Residential one, using the diagonal Road connection.

[MandelSoft]

I think your last tutorial is not neccesary. You can normally draw a diagonal road neighbour connection.

[metarvo]

Yes, but it comes out orthogonal on the other end, as seen in 2.01.  A diagonal road drawn into this connection will lead to an unnecessary curve in the road in the neighbor city.

[sumwonyuno]

The first tutorial is very helpful, though for diagonal road neighbor connections, I just compensate on the other city tile (demolish and redraw so it's aligned).  The real problem with diagonal neighbor connections is for multi-tile networks.  I have no clue on how to make them without going orthogonal at the border.

[Luke09]

omg,nice,pretty nice.This is getting even more interesting

[delta9]

The street connection tutorial(s) is/are very useful for breaking the quad borders.  Good for either using streets as major routes in small villages/towns (via SAM) or breaking the border where subdivisions and such lie.  So simple yet so useful, thank you OP.

As has been said, native diagonals can make connections, one just has to correct the alignment on the other side once it is made.  I've made many a rail/STR connection this way 

[metarvo]

Better Neighbor Connections Part 3

Now, we're moving on to Maxis highways.  This construction may be a little harder than the last two.

Diagonal Elevated Highway Connections

You will need:

NAM


3.01

First, you'll need to form an orthogonal elevated highway connection to the desired quad.  This will be the future site of the diagonal highway connection, so some planning will be needed.  I have placed Maxis signs at the connection site for a reference point.

3.02

Bulldoze all but the two connection tiles.  Don't bulldoze the connection under any circumstances.  If you do, you will have to restart at
3.01 above.


3.03

In the Custom Interchanges menu under Highways, find the High Elevated Rail over Elevated Highway Puzzle Piece.  Place the piece so that the high elevated rail is directly above the connection.  You will need to overhang the puzzle piece over the quad border.


3.04

Bulldoze one of the highway sections that are one tile away from the connection.  You should be left with two empty connection tiles.

3.05

In the Custom Interchanges menu under Highways, find the "T" Highway OnSlope puzzle piece.  Rotate it with the Home and End keys so that it is facing the desired diagonal direction, with the edge of the light gray (elevated) section aligned to the quad border.  Now, place the light gray edge on the connection site.  Since the neighbor connection was made with an elevated highway, the yellow arrows will be floating above the actual connection site.  This is why I placed the signs on the connection tiles earlier.


This is the result.

3.06

Bulldoze any section of the ground portion of this puzzle piece.


This is the result.

3.07

Connect the connection to your highway system as desired.

3.08
To complete the job, repeat steps 3.02 through 3.07 in the neighbor quad.

Here are two proof of concept pictures to show that Sims actually take this connection to work:


Residential city


Industrial city

Unlike the other neighbor connections that I have covered, this one comes with a side effect that may be undesired.  The on-slope piece used earlier comes with a street underpass.  If this street is bulldozed, the highway connection will be lost.  However, I will present some ideas to make the three street tiles more tolerable.


If you actually want an underpass at the connection site, then you can drag a street through the underpass to make it functional.  You can even upgrade it to a road or OWR if desired, but you won't be able to downgrade it back to a street again without bulldozing the neighbor connection.


Parking lots can be visually connected to the street underpass.  This may render the street underpass to be eyecandy only, but it can be a good way to make it blend in.  As an alternative, the SAM-1 parking lots can be used to retain the functionality of the underpass.


If you would rather ignore the street underpass, you can use overhanging diagonal fillers to hide it.

[SC4BOY]

Enjoyed your highway work! Now for the ground highways and avenues..... hehe

I do have an added tip.. I don't know why, but when I tried it, I found that the el highway over road "T connector" kept building with the underroad perpendicular to the edge rather than in line with it (Step 3.05). By FIRST drawing the road along the edge, it automatically aligns..

[Connor]

Great tutorials, really helpful.   

[metarvo]

Better Neighbor Connections Part 4

Before you begin, you will need:

NAM Version 29

As I'm sure many of you know by now, NAM Version 29 has been released.  You'll need it to build the two new diagonal neighbor connections I'm about to introduce: Avenues and Ground Maxis Highways.

Diagonal Avenue Neighbor Connections

4.01

First, you'll need to build a normal orthogonal Avenue neighbor connection where you want your diagonal Avenue to connect.  A little preplanning may be required.

4.02

In the Miscellaneous Transportation menu, select the High Elevated Rail puzzle pieces icon and press Tab until you reach the High Elevated Rail over Avenue puzzle piece.  Build it as shown so that the High Elevated Rail passes over the neighbor connection arrows.

4.03

Bulldoze each Avenue section except for the neighbor connection.  Once again, you'll have to start over if you bulldoze the neighbor connection at any time.

EDIT: If you're going to use the Diagonal Rail under Perpendicular Diagonal Avenue piece for the connection (e.g. to build a southeast-bound neighbor connection on the east side of a city quad), skip to 4.08 on the next page.

4.04

In the Rail menu, select the Underground Rail Intersection with Maxis Roadways icon and press Tab until you get to the Straight Rail under Diagonal Avenue puzzle piece.  Rotate it to suit the diagonal direction in which you plan for the Avenue to leave the tile, and then place it so that the Avenue leaves the tile at the connection.

(NOTE: You can even use a FAAVE-4 (fractional angle AVE-4) piece here instead if you want a fractional Avenue connection rather than a diagonal one.  Thanks go to Wilfried for discovering this one!  )

4.05

You should be left with a connection similar to the one shown here.  An Avenue "starter" is provided so that you can connect your diagonal Avenue to the connection.  You'll have to go to the neighbor tile and follow these steps there as well to complete the job.  There's nothing stopping you from continuing the Underground Rail under the connection, but that is entirely up to you.  Yes, I know the concrete sidewalks are present on the connection, but this is only a cosmetic issue and it should be unnoticed and even desirable if built in an urban center.

4.06



Here are two proof-of-concept pics that show Sims using a diagonal Avenue connection.

Diagonal Ground Highway Neighbor Connections

4.06a



If you want a diagonal GMHW neighbor connection instead, then you can substitute GMHW for Avenue in each of the above steps*.  Here are two pics to show that it works.

*EDIT: In fact, I later discovered that the FLUPs Underground Route under Diagonal Ground Highway can be used for the connection instead of the Underground Rail piece if one desires to build a diagonal GMHW connection without the concrete sidewalks, leaving only the manhole covers that come with the FLUPs.  Unfortunately, this can't be done with the Avenues because there is no similar FLUPs piece for diagonal Avenues, so the concrete sidewalks will have to stay on those.

[Battlecat]

Fantastic stuff!  This is a great side effect of the NAM puzzle pieces.  Thanks for sharing!

[Shiftred]

I am going into all my cities now and fixing all of my diaganol avenues that I have turned straight for connections.  Thanks!

[diamonddog_74]

OMG! These are great tips! This is precisely what I was looking for. It annoys me to no end that SC4 can't make diagonal avenue neighbor connections. Thanks for showing how to get around that.

[GDO29Anagram]

To be honest, I already knew the trick for street neighbour connections, so I already knew at least one of these tricks... That is, until I saw the trick for diagonal two-tile network neighbour connections...